06/11/2021
When you become a mother, you go through SO many transformations. Internally, externally, and emotionally.
While I WAS prepared that things like bigger feet, wider hips, and saggier bosoms might be headed my way, one thing that I naively did NOT foresee coming was a transformation of my sense of style.
I guess in one regard, it did stem from physical changes, but I also found the mental checklist had changed as I was deciding what to wear each morning. I was spending a LOT of time on the floor with my baby. I needed access to feed easily. I needed to duck to the Post Office every afternoon without having to get changed, and still feel stylish doing it.
I also wasn’t quite as proud of my excess mum-tum as I had been about my beautiful bump, so old maternity clothes were out of the question. (Not to mention being sick of them all.) And pre-pregnancy clothes that hugged my curves just made me feel uneasy and uncomfortable.
So, it has taken me a full 18 months to arrive at this point. This point looks a little blurry if I’m honest and you may have noticed a slow-down in our releases lately. I absolutely adore all the collections we’ve released this year, each of them would have been pieces I reached for time and time again in my pre-children life, but now I’m feeling that they just aren’t ‘me’ anymore.
That may sound a little selfish but if I don’t live, breathe, and love what I’m designing - then there’s no passion and no point.
I started this business straight out of a corporate job where I was desperate for fun and feminine office attire and that was the gap that so badly needed filling in the fashion industry. My life is now a stay-at-home mum and business owner and that wardrobe looks entirely different.
As a one-woman show, this label needs to pivot and evolve with me as it grows and I can now see a new gap opening in the market for bright and feminine pieces that flatter a post-baby body, no matter how many decades ago you had your children! What you can expect from us moving forward is the same high quality, attention-to-detail, thoroughly-tested pieces that you’ve always counted on.
I’m excited for the future of Cousin Billie and the fresh changes that you will see in our new collections. We’re still dealing with Covid delays with our Melbourne manufacturers but hoping to be back on schedule by AW22.
Thank-you all for being here, and for your loyalty and support since Day 1 of this label. I hope that this feeling resonates with some of you too. I’m excited to start again clean and fill all of your wardrobes with colour and quality!
[📸 by exactly a year ago! 🙊 Pretty sure it’s still the latest photo of Dexter and I. 🙈🥴🤦🏻♀️]
